When the McCourt family sold the Los Angeles Dodgers to the Guggenheim Partners in 2012, one of the other bidders was billionaire hedge fund manager Steve Cohen.
While Cohen did not get the Dodgers, he continued pursuing a dream of owning a Major League Baseball team and finally saw it come to fruition this offseason after officially purchasing the New York Mets.
The Mets are an organization in a big market, of course, but they haven’t had much success in recent years. There have been trips to the postseason but the franchise’s last World Series win came in 1986.
Cohen is hoping to change that and believes he can in the next few years, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today:
Steve Cohen said it would be disappointing if the #Mets don't win the World Series within the next 3-5 years.
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) November 10, 2020
Cohen even named the Dodgers as the organization he is looking to emulate the Mets after:
If there's a model franchise to emulate, #Mets owner Steve Cohen says, it's the #Dodgers.
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) November 10, 2020
If Cohen is looking to build a championship-caliber organization, he doesn’t need to look further than the Dodgers, who have won eight consecutive division titles since the new ownership group took over, reached the World Series three times and finally won it all in 2020.
Not only did the Dodgers win their first championship since 1988, but they also have a core of talented, young players that will have them in the mix for at least the next decade.
Perhaps the Mets are the team that will challenge them for National League supremacy in the coming years now that they have an owner who is willing to spend. While the Mets didn’t make the playoffs in 2020, they do have some quality players Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Pete Alonso and Jeff McNeil, among others, so Cohen isn’t exactly starting with a blank slate.
Cohen’s purchase of Mets breaks Dodgers’ record
By purchasing the Mets for $2.4 billion, Cohen broke the Dodgers’ record of $2 billion when they sold to the Guggenheim Partners in 2012.
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